When Charmaine said, “I’m not sure I ever loved him,” it felt as if a knife twisted in his heart. Not true, Not true, he protested, but then he reminded himself that he’d said almost the same thing to Amelie when she’d asked if he still loved Charmaine. Did I really love her then? Did she love me? And what about now? Is there still some love left? Do I want there to be?
He wished he hadn’t stopped to listen. He wished he hadn’t heard the question. And he for sure wished he hadn’t heard Charmaine’s answer.
Truth was, sometimes curiosity came back to bite a nosy guy in the butt.
What is wrong with me? On the one hand, I want her so bad I’m a walking hard-on. On the other hand, I wish she’d leave and find some other schmuck. One side of my brain says, “Go for it, bucko. Take whatever you can get.” The other side says, “Slow down, cowboy. Sometimes riding the bull isn’t worth the pain.” What is wrong with me?
I know, I know, said the voice in his head, or rather St. Jude standing over there in all his plastic glory, staring ahead like a . . . statue.
“Well, keep it to yourself. I don’t want to know,” he muttered.
“Who ya talkin’ to, buddy?” Linc asked. He’d just come up beside him, carrying his guitar in one hand and a battered old trumpet case in the other. Following close behind were Clarence, with a plug in his mouth, and Jimmy, with a frown on his mouth.
“Just myself,” he answered.
“Women’ll do that to a fellow,” Linc opined.
Raoul jerked his head toward Linc with surprise. “Who said a woman was involved?”
“Don’t have to. Anytime a guy starts talkin’ to himself, a woman must be involved.”
“That’s ’cause Rusty hasn’t been takin’ my advice,” Clarence said, apparently overhearing enough to get the gist of the conversation. “Bowlegged, boy. Bowlegged.”
Raoul rolled his eyes at Linc, who just grinned at him.
“Whattya mean? Bowlegged?” Jimmy wanted to know.
The three adult males smiled but remained silent. But Mr. Plastic said in his head, I know, I know.
In his own head, Raoul sent this silent message. Why don’t you go find someone else to plague? Some hopeless cause somewhere else, like Iraq.
You’re as hopeless as they come, St. Jude informed him drolly.
I’m losin’ my frickin’ mind.
A mind is a beautiful thing, but it ain’t everything, boy.
A short time later, they settled on the back porch, and Raoul tried his best not to look at Charmaine, who batted her black eyelashes at him with the innocence of a born-to-tempt siren. While his mind was engaged thus in testosterone overload, Tante Lulu sucker punched him with the question: “How’s about we invite yer mother fer the Thanksgiving feast?”
Raoul didn’t know what aspect of that seemingly casual suggestion scared him most. The prospect of being in the same room with his nonmaternal mother. The prospect of his mother coming back to the ranch she hated after all these years. Or the prospect of a “feast” of any kind being held here. He opted for the safest answer, “Uh, I don’t think she’d be interested. She’s a vegan.”
“Thass okay, boy. Some of my best friends are Lutheran.”
Raoul’s jaw dropped open. The other three males on the porch snorted with mirth. And Charmaine, ever kind to her adopted aunt, explained, “A vegan is a vegetarian.”
“Why dintcha say so, you lunkhead?” Tante Lulu said to him. “Bless her heart, Josette allus was like buckshot in a huntin’ rifle. Scattered, yer mother was. Goin’ off on one cause or ’nother, without direction.”
Leaving me behind.
“I reckon some wimmen jist doan have the mommy gene. Remember the time when you wuz ’bout seven she forgot you at a rest stop when she went on one of her research trips?”
He nodded. Oh, yeah, I remember. Seven years old and left behind. Talk about!
“So, you gonna invite her?”
“No.”
“Mebbe I’ll give her a call.”
“No.”
“What do vegans eat anyhows?” she asked Charmaine, totally ignoring his protests.
“Bark and seeds and grass, I think,” Charmaine answered, giving him a saucy wink.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Raoul said, in as firm a voice as he could manage, “I do not want or need a Thanksgiving feast here. I have nothing to be thankful for this year.”
“Me neither,” Charmaine piped in.
Tante Lulu gasped with shock. “Can you believe these two?” She glanced over at St. Jude, as if seeking his opinion. Jude still stared straight ahead. “Bless their hearts, dumb as dirt, both of ’em.”
Yep, you-know-who concurred.
Singin’ the blues . . .
Linc surprised them all.
Oh, Rusty and Clarence and Jimmy had probably heard him sing and play the occasional melody before, but not like this. Tonight he was not Linc the Black Cowboy. He was Linc the quintessential artist, a musical performer, in his real element.
He carried with him an ancient-looking case, presumably holding a trumpet, the instrument that had been the specialty of one of his Civil War era ancestors, but his instrument of choice was the guitar. He adjusted the strap of a vintage Gibson acoustic and tested the strings. With head tilted to hear the tiniest nuances of sound, he became a different person. As if he were in his own world, he smiled softly, a musician focused on his craft.
Charmaine sat on a glider with Tante Lulu, a wool throw draped over both their shoulders against the chill. Jimmy sat in one rocker and Clarence in the other. Rusty half sat on the porch rail.
“My great grandfather many times removed was Abel ‘A. B.’ Lincoln, a New Orleans musician,” Linc related as he began to strum on the guitar. “I was named after him.”
“How many years ago was that?” Jimmy asked.
“Many, many,” Linc answered with a chuckle. “About the time of the Civil War and twenty years after. He died in 1885 when he was about my age.”
“I think I’ve heard of him,” Charmaine said.
“Maybe you’re mixing him up with one of yer ex-husbands,” Tante Lulu quipped.
Charmaine elbowed her for teasing.
“I have a few old journals of his,” Linc went on. “Plus, I’ve checked out some historical society books on early blues musicians.” He began to sing, faintly at first.
“If you were a bayou, my friend,
And I were a fish, my friend,
I would swim you, my friend,
Because I love you so . . .”
“If you were mud, my friend,
And I were a pig, my friend,
I would wallow in you, my friend,
Because I love you so . . .”
“If you were the sky, my friend,
And I were the wind, my friend,
I would billow for you, my friend,
Because I love you so . . .”
“What kind of songs are those?” Jimmy complained. “Pigs, and mud and stuff!”
“Like rap music that praises big butts and gangs is any better?” Linc laughed. “Actually, these were lyrics that slaves in the cotton and sugar fields used to chant. It’s hard to tell which were passed on by oral tradition and which were original to A. B. In truth, I suspect that everyone added a new lyric as they went along, including A. B. It’s just that he was the one to write them down.”
He sang several other songs then, including some by Billy Bolton who was considered the father of the blues back in the nineteenth century. Then he played a poignantly melodic song, about peaches, of all things, which caused Charmaine and Rusty to look at each other and smile.
“You’re playin’ in my orchard,
Now don’t you see.
If you don’t like my peaches,
Stop shakin’ my tree.”
“And that goes for you, too, chère,” Rusty told her with a wicked wink. “You better stop shakin’ my . . . tree.” He stared pointedly at her blouse as he spok
e.
She tilted her head saucily, and asked, “Or?”
“Or else,” was all Rusty would say. But that was enough. She felt the promise of else in every erotic spot on her body, of which there were about a thousand.
“Have any of you ever heard the song ‘My Simone?’” Linc asked.
She, Rusty, and Clarence all said, “Yes.” Tante Lulu asked, “Didn’t Louis Armstrong sing that song?”
Linc nodded. “Bessie Smith’s version was probably the most famous. And lots of other artists did it, too.” Linc sang the beautiful song then with all the emotion his husky voice could drum up and all the pain of his genetic memory of A. B.’s love for a woman he could never truly have.
“Did your ancestor write that song?” Rusty asked in the heavy silence that followed the song.
“He did.” Linc raised his chin with pride, before adding, “Simone ran a sporting house in Nawleans after the Civil War. They loved each other but could never marry because she was white and he was black. He wrote this song about Simone . . . just before they both committed suicide.”
“Tsk-tsk-tsk!” Tante Lulu said at the sadness of such an act.
“Oh, Linc!” Charmaine got up and went over to lean down and give him a hug. When she straightened, she told him, “You should be writing all this down. Put it in a book. Or make a record.”
“That’s just what I was doing before I was . . . incarcerated,” Linc answered while he started to take off his guitar strap.
Charmaine was confused. Rusty had already told her that Linc had been convicted of embezzlement . . . money he’d stolen to support a cocaine habit. He’d been clean for five years now, but before hitting bottom he’d lost his job, his wife, and his home. Something was out of kilter in this picture, though. She just couldn’t reconcile a talented musician and author with a ranch hand.
“What did you do for a living before you went to prison, Linc?” Tante Lulu was obviously as confused as she was. It was none of their business, of course, but both of them stared at him expectantly, waiting for his answer.
“College professor,” he answered bluntly. “Music history at Tulane.”
Charmaine gasped with surprise.
Tante Lulu nodded as if she’d suspected as much.
Clarence and Rusty appeared already to be aware of his background.
Jimmy would have been more impressed if he’d said rock musician. In fact, Jimmy’s attention centered more on Charmaine now as he inquired, “Is it true you was once Miss Loo-zee-anna?”
“Yep.”
“Holy smoke!”
She chuckled at his raised eyebrows.
Rusty just smiled, knowing she would be irritated under other circumstances by Jimmy’s golly-gee reaction to her as a beauty queen. But he was just a kid.
“Jeesh! You wore a bathing suit and a gown and all that stuff? Like a movie star or sumpin’?”
“For sure, I did.”
“Wow!” He was gaping at her as if she were some dumpy old broad who’d never be able to squeeze her bod into a revealing outfit fit for a beauty pageant. Well, she couldn’t get too offended. To him, a girl of twenty would seem old.
“What did you do fer talent?” Clarence asked.
She brightened. “I sang.”
“You did?” Linc was looking at her with interest. “What did you sing?”
“That old Billie Holiday number ‘The Man I Love.’”
“You sang the blues?” Linc’s jaw dropped with shock, that the two of them would have so much in common.
“Yep. I wanted to do a Cajun song, but this is Loo-zee-anna, after all. There were plenty of Cajun and Creole songs, even one girl playing the accordion and another with a frottoir for accompaniment. A frottoir is an over-the-shoulder washboard.” The latter explanation she added for Jimmy’s benefit because he was frowning with confusion.
“But the blues?” Linc was shaking his head with disbelief. “I just didn’t expect the blues from you.”
“Why? Because I’m always so happy?” Just call me Loo-zee-anna Pollyanna.
“Probably because he expected you to do something more outrageous,” Rusty offered. “Like Madonna in a cone cup thingee.”
“Mais oui. Me and Madonna. Like a virgin.” She stuck her tongue out at him, which caused him to grin. Not the reaction she’d been hoping for. “Actually, I thought about doing ‘Twist and Shout’. You know, the one with ‘Shake it up, baby!’ That would have given me an opportunity to dance and strut my stuff.” She flashed Rusty a dirty look before he could add another rude comment—about all the stuff she had to strut, no doubt. Or about her dancing with a mop. “But my coach advised me to go for a less flamboyant persona.”
“I doubt those prissy ass judges, bless their hearts, could have taken yer shakin’ it up, honey,” Tante Lulu said. If it had been Rusty offering that opinion, she might have hit him. Since it was Tante Lulu, she just smiled. Which just encouraged the old broad. “I ’member the time you and me entered that belly dance contest in Lafayette. Lordy, Lordy, that one geezer on the judging panel about swallowed his false teeth when he saw yer belly button ring.”
Everyone chuckled, except Rusty, who asked, “You have a belly button ring? Can I see?”
“Yes, I have one. No, you can’t see it, Mr. Lech.” But maybe someday. If you’re lucky. If I’m lucky. Oh, boy, I am losing this battle to be pure.
“I’m thinkin’ ’bout gettin’ one myself,” Tante Lulu said. “Did it hurt?”
“Why would anybody deliberately poke a needle in their skin? And, hell’s bells, Louise,” Clarence told Tante Lulu, “I could give ya a piercing and save ya a trip to town. We staple ID rings onto the steers’ ears every day. Can’t be any different than a human skin piercing.”
“Uh, I’ll think about it,” Tante Lulu said with a slight shiver. “Besides, it’s hard ta find my belly button these days fer all the wrinkles in my tummy.”
Not a picture any of them wanted in their heads!
“You never got pierced when you were with me,” Rusty pointed out in a little boy whiny voice.
Geesh! The things he fixates over!
“Did you?”
As if he wouldn’t have known! The man knew every inch of her body back then. Every freakin’ inch. “I got my navel pierced because I was depressed over my second divorce. Justin was the most charming of all my husbands. My oh my, that man could talk a woman into anything. And he was a great dancer. Unfortunately, he was doing the mattress bop with everything that wore a dress.” Charmaine could see that Rusty was annoyed by her bringing up one of her ex-husbands, which pleased her in an immature way. But when had maturity been her strongest point? So, she barreled ahead. “I got the tattoo after I kicked out my third ex-husband, Lester.”
“A tattoo?” Rusty mouthed silently at her. Then, out loud, “Where?”
I thought you’d never ask. She glanced down near the crotch of her jeans, then back up. Holding his gaze, she smiled.
He gulped several times and looked as if he’d swallowed his tongue.
Everyone was chuckling at the interplay between the two of them, though Rusty, sitting directly across from her, had been the only one to see the direction of her gaze.
“Then, after Antoine, my fourth husband, I . . . oh, never mind. I shouldn’t discuss that in mixed company.”
Rusty didn’t say anything. She suspected his tongue was still stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Atta girl,” Tante Lulu encouraged her, sensing that she was on a tear, deliberately teasing Rusty so.
“Don’t stop now, darlin’,” Rusty groused, once he’d dislodged his tongue. “Tell us what you got after your last divorce. I can see you’re just dyin’ to blab it to one and all.”
Gleefully, she informed him, “I bought myself a toy.”
“A toy?” he practically choked out, suspecting a trap she had set for him. Smart guy!
“A boy toy?” Tante Lulu whooped. “I’d like to get me one of those.”
/> “No, I didn’t get myself a boy toy.” She tried to appear offended but ended up laughing. “A mechanical toy, so to speak.”
Jimmy continued to frown as he tried to follow their conversation. “Like a Game Boy?”
“You could say that,” she answered with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek.
“Sometimes, chère, you are not happy till you go too far.” Rusty’s shaking head and chastising words were belied by the wicked grin that lifted the edges of his lips. “Dare I ask what you got after your first divorce?”
“The biggest heartache of my life,” she blurted out before she had a chance to bite her tongue. Could a woman die of overcrying? I almost did.
For some reason, Rusty looked surprised.
“Will you sing your pageant song for us?” Linc asked then. “I don’t recall the music precisely for ‘The Man I Love,’ but I could provide some background chords.”
“Me too,” Clarence said, pulling out his harmonica.
“Oh, I don’t know if . . .” She hesitated. It had been a long time since she’d sung before an audience, and never professionally. But this was just friends and family. And she’d sung this particular song for Rusty before . . . in private. She hadn’t met him yet when she’d entered the pageant or reigned as Miss Louisiana. “Sure. Why not?”
She thought she heard Rusty moan under his breath. She wasn’t sure if he moaned over the possibility of her making a fool of herself or over the possibility that she would shake him up even more than she already had. She decided to assume the latter.
Going to the doorway where she would be backlit by the lamp hanging over the kitchen table, she posed herself against one side and pulled the elastic neckline of her blouse down over her shoulders. Good move, that, she concluded when Rusty moaned again. “Picture me in a long slinky, flame red dress. Off the shoulders like this blouse, but form-fitting from the bodice to the toes of my red-sequined stiletto heels. The whole point was to look like an old-time torch singer.”
“We get the picture,” Jimmy said enthusiastically, though he’d probably totally missed the image she was going for. Rusty didn’t, though, as was evidenced by the arousal that glazed his dark eyes, causing them to go half-shuttered as he studied her. She noticed that his hands were folded over his lap. Clenched.